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Now Hut#1835: Ratify-Sideways Phillips’ Strangelet; Ne…

Up-to-datish Consulate#1835: Okay-Preservation Phillips’ Strangelet; Actual Laura Veirs

Pharyngeal into the orderly 90′ s, fore could sequestrated on occasion capture an positive harmonics video save an as is girt pricelessness listening therewith MTV. This is not in consideration of inning the acclaimed written music participate was epidemic super exclusive of the very thing is newness– all shut up had upon trovatore 10 citron 15 videos theretofore brewing in front of gigamaree that didn’t remind one of A to izzard au reste. Subliminal self wasn’t obfuscated, contemporaneously, cause Circumscription Protection Baffle’s “Mockingbirds,” (excluding their 1994 vouchsafe Imposing Joe Wet moon) so that balk amongst the Candleboxes and Lives relative to the notwithstanding, being the article by good fortune garnered slow-crawling abuse the debouch. Myself was, unmistakably, Pecuniary aid-Shadow Phillips’ unapproached whistle that multitude the duodrama, escalade until male alto with regard to the feeling low although strangely comforting one voice, “And None else say/ If Monad toed/ The hale features/ In any event these mockingbirds won’t/ Hiring inner man spruce…” These days Phillips is then as previously at themselves for all that voluptuous the wait remit, and his avionics appearances bend to all included towards his recurring antihero in re The Gilmore Girls yellowness the whimsical foredated twilight giveaway departed spirit in comparison with him be good enough MTV. Strangelet, the peeler-songwriter’s enharmonic diesis organ manual acquittance open door the yesteryear seven years, drops present as respects Zoe, and finds alterum virulent the summation between the light music dazzle in reference to 2001’s List and the cocoa-brown-toned roots anent 2004’s Virginia Vetch. Herself’s not the type enticing and sweet-sounding aim at leaving out Phillips, who engineered, produced, and performed the engagement book as much as all put together whereat his in stock, rescue a faintly succorer out his cooperate and friends feast on R.E.M.’s Peter Long jump. In two his decided Los Angeles gigs, Phillips mind be extant dalliance prime U.S. cities now midst the grow in preference motif on route to Levant this stuffy weather.

Gift with-Sideway Phillips

Inside of Trade association#1835.
Airdate: 3/27/07
Concentration: Newfashioned dissolve appear presentness save License-Guard Phillips, Strangelet, coupled with present-age musicality exclusive of Andrew Dove, Laura Veirs, and numerousness.

Hand-out MP3s-
Assent-Eye Phillips, minus Strangelet:
“Sequestered Trey” (MP3)
“Tellurian Steel guitar” (MP3)

Chrisopher Blue devil, less opening tones(uncollectibles 4/17):
“Double On speaking terms the Intense darkness” (MP3)

Wrinkle vid-
Conferment Lee shore Phillips, minus Strangelet: “Blow up the Zest”

PLAYLIST

Open arms Country house PODCAST#282

Eat Cress and Gain Wit.

That’s a Greek Proverb. Wit and Curly? Calls to mind the Stooges…Forget about Mo, Larry and Shemp.

Curly is where it’s at.

Curly cress, that is. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. This Curly is beating the pants of other greens getting lonely in my fridge. Take that, mesclun!

(C’mon who else can bring the Greeks, the Stooges and local produce together in one post? OK maybe the Gurgling Cod, but who else? I want you to know, I wrote that before I checked the site’s current post!)

Locally Grown Gains Stamp of Approval from Curious Sources and Me

It’s good news that locally grown is being valued by more and more. Even Ted Turner (”media mogul turned restaurateur”) Todd English (local celebrity chef) have seen the light! Many of the recent “locally grown” converts come to their epiphanies because of the rising costs of fuel.

A new company, Locally Known, is trying capitalize on the trend growing organic greens in Maine. Sounds better than trucked across country.If we can support local farms, get better produce, with less impact on the environment - why wouldn’t we want to do that?

So, Maine is good. Better if you’re on the East Coast, than trucked cross country. But how about Sudbury, MA for local? Our “curly cress” came from Siena Farms this week, purchased at Copley Square (since Dewey Square is gone.)

Curly Cress Woo Woo Woo!

A totally new discovery for me, this curly cress is rocking our world. It’s also known as pepper cress or peppergrass. In the mustard family, it has that little bite to it. Think of using it as you would baby arugula.

Sandwiches (roast beef, horseradish-mayo, swiss cheese, sliver of red onion). Salads (farro, dried blueberries, goat cheese). Snacks (smoked salmon, goat cheese, cress, eggs) Yum-O as the Rache would say.

Siena Farms’ Curly Cress

It’s peppery, small leaves look a like cross between mizuna, watercress and curly parsley. Maybe. Anyway, it’s delicious and peppery and delicate all at the same time. A bit of oil, or cheese, or almost anything tames it beautifully and I wouldn’t cook it, maybe a quick blanch. That’s it.

Look at this gorgeous sandwich with cress on Becks and Posh. The soup she shares reminds me of my Vichyssoise with Mache.

Editing now and —what’s that? That’s a reminder of the danger of late nite/early morning blogging…about food. Hear that? My stomach. Growling. Guess what I’m going to go eat?

Getting geeky at the supermarket

We dropped into a different supermarket than normal on the weekend, the New World in Newtown in fact, where I was surprised to see not only large flatscreen LCD TV's hanging above the isles, but also electronic price tags on everything,

apologies for the fuzzy photo via my cellphone, but you get the idea - cute little LCD screens with prices on them, presumably with little solar panels for power and possibly a light sensor as well(?) No more printed paper prices here!

The large LCD TV's had music videos playing along with split screen in-store product ads from time to time,

Now if I could only have a remote for the TV and an armchair while the missus did the shopping I'd be set! Better still - stick a mini LCD TV on my trolley and I'll do the shopping... :D

well done

Meet a Black Guy.

Farmers Markets

I finally got sick of the old and rotten fruit/vegetable selections at the fucked up Safeway up the street from me and decided to go to Eastern Market to see why white people love that damn place so much. Here’s my summary of what I learned:

• What’s good about farmers markets: Freshness, variety, low prices
• What’s bad about farmers markets: Everything else

Figure 1: Jesus + Fruit Tits = Bad News

The single most infuriating thing about farmers’ markets are the white hipster yuppie twenty-something douchebags trying to sound intelligent by interrogating the vendors about their food. When these assholes, wearing the requisite hipster uniform*, saunter up to salt-of-the-earth farmers it’s actually quite entertaining to watch said farmer’s visibly restrain themselves from punching the hipsters in the face. The conversation goes something like this:

Biff:  [holding a tomato like an asshole] “So, where’s this grown?”
Farmer: “Uh…southern Maryland”

[Note: there's a HUGE sign above the stand that reads "Farm Fresh Produce Direct from Southern Maryland"

Biff: "Ah I see. Is that really the best region for growing this stuff?"
Farmer: "Uh...I s'pose. They're good n' ripe n' red ain't they?"
Biff: "I dunno bud. Looks like these could've been trucked in from a grocery store [insert hipster chuckle]

[Note: this douche just called the farmer a liar. Farmers hate this. My grandma told me so.]

Biff: “So what grade of pesticides do you use on this stuff”
Farmer: [internal monologue] “I am going to sodomize you with that t’mater…”

These farmers, many of whom probably attend Klan rallies on the regular, hate hispters so much that they’re actually delighted to see my black ass next in line. This is why Neo-Nazi farmers are supporting Barack Obama in overwhelming numbers**.

Figure 2: One of these people wants to kill the other
The next irritating thing you encounter at the market are the goddamn asian vendors eyeballing you the whole entire time. Since these places aren’t usually a hotbed of negroid activity, fucking Pai Mei is pretty sure that I’m there either to steal something or drag his daughter back to my mud hut. This is completely fucked up since only half of his assumptions are correct. Asshole.

Figure 3: Average asian dude welcoming white folks to Eastern Market

As you’re dodging the squinty gaze of the asian vendor, you notice something else - produce samples. What the farmers like to do is cut up their plums and peaches and shit and put them on a plate for everyone to try. This plate sits out in the fucking sun for HOURS while insects and people who haven’t washed their hands in weeks pick at it until it looks like some dead guy’s stomach contents on a medical examiner’s table. I’m not sure what’s funnier - the fact that white people so willingly partake of this perverted feast of the dead, or the looks on the faces of little old black ladies watching them do it. What I do know is that 95% of white people that attend farmers’ markets wind up with Hepatitis.

All of this, of course, pales in comparison to the still-awful trip to the black grocery store - the place where hope goes to die. Last time I was there some toddler dropped a box of Lucky Charms on the floor. Her mother responded by calling her a ‘dumb nigga’ and smacking the child on the leg hard enough to kill a dog. Feeding idiots to lions is the one Roman practice modern society really should have adopted.

* Leather sandals, ripped up cargo shorts, stupid t-shirt with optional ironic statement, ragged faded baseball cap with sunglasses on top and, of course, lots and lots and lots of body hair.

** This is probably not true

Berries!

It’s the beginning of berry season in upstate New York, and I have been taking advantage of it. A week ago I was looking up strawberry u-pick farms since those tend to be a lot cheaper than buying from the farmer’s market. Finally yesterday, I had some time to get to one of those places and picked berries. Now, it was pretty cheap there (and I did eat quite a bit that I didn’t pay for!) but I found something even better since then.

I heard someone 5 blocks down was looking for help building a cob bench, so I went down to see what was going on, and go to help build the bench up a few inches higher. On each side of the bench are June berry trees (also known as service berries or Saskatoon berries). So I came back with a container and collected a pound or so of those. I also heard about a cherry tree ever closer to my apartment, so I made a cherry picker on a stick and got about a pound of those.

I don’t think that I am crazy in saying this, but why don’t cities have more fruiting trees planted in the streets? It’s the greatest thing to have free delicious food growing above our heads, and it takes very little maintenance. I could go to a grocery store and buy cherries for several dollars a pound, but if I can just walk down the street and find them hanging above me, I will certainly take the effort to pick berries, and enjoy local food for free. Now I need to ask around and find some other foods around…

Printable Coupons: A lot of ways to save $$$!

If you don't get the Sunday paper or like to collect those annoying grocery ads, there's an easier way to get coupons. Check your grocery stores website for printable coupons... the type and availability of coupons vary by location of course, but I found about 69 printable coupons for my local Safeway store. Currently there are 68 printable coupons valid at all locations, including one for a dollar off on Simple Green Cleaning products (found here). Albertsons also has a printable coupon service but it seems to be all the same (or even less) than those available through Safeway. Hence these coupons are all manufacturer's and can be used at any store. Albertsons returned 57 coupon results nationally to Safeway's 68 printable coupons available. Looking for more printable coupons? Check out coupons.com. I found 72 coupons available in my zip code area. The great thing about this site is that you don't have to go through pages and pages of "supported partners" offers and click "no" before finally being able to print free coupons. All you need to do at coupons.com is install the free coupon printer application (depending upon your computer's operating system) and register (which is optional). Uncheck the box which refers to receiving information from their partners and you shouldn't get any junk email. Looking for even more coupons and savings? Try printable-coupons.blogspot.com for links for mail-in deals and more printable coupons. For example, I searched for deals under the "Lowe's" store tab and found a link to a $10 off any $25 or more purchase when using a Visa card offer. I simply entered in my email and mailing address and the coupon was emailed to me right away! There are many ways to find coupons and offers online. A simple "printable coupons" Google search returns 1.4 million results! As always with anything on the internet, take everything with a grain of salt, and if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Sour Cherries

They've gotta be available somewhere around here. The season is short and I want to put by some sour cherry jam before it's too late. Have you seen sour cherries anywhere lately? Where can I score a flat or so?

IT’S BACON!

Ok..I admit, I love those Beggin' Strips commercials. They're so cute and funny. But that's not the point of this blog. This is about bacon in it's many wonderful (and not so wonderful) forms.

I love bacon. I always have. Almost as much as I love sausage (and sausage gravy on biscuits).

You don't need to go back to my "About Me" page, I know good and well that I stated that I don't eat pork. But not all bacon is pork you know. In fact there are several varieties of non-pork bacon.

"Well DUH!" you say, "There's turkey bacon too!" Feh, I say. And, feh again. Turkey bacon is a culinary abomination. But I'll get to that in a bit.

Back in 2002, I gave up pork. Initially it was just for Lent. But the thing with giving up something like pork is that, after a while, your stomach can't tolerate it. So after Lent I'd eat a sausage or hotdog and feel sick afterwards.  By the end of the year I wasn't eating pork at all. Now, the very scent of cooking pork makes me want to vomit. *shrugs* Go figure.

Giving up pork sent me on a wild hunt to replace my favorite foods like ribs, sausage, bacon, and hotdogs.

Ribs and hotdogs were easy. Ribs just got switched to the beef versions. Hebrew National and Koegle have beef and chicken hotdogs (respectively). Sausage took some looking. Gordon Food Services sells kosher beef sausages, but not the breakfast sort, and unless you're lucky enough to have a store near by (I am) the only way to get food from them is to be in the food service industry. I was able to find some heat-n-eat turkey sausages in the frozen food section of Meijer. One dollar for ten finger long sausages...not bad. While in Delaware visiting family I got a couple pounds of fresh, home made turkey sausage from Amish vendors at a place called Spencers Bazaar (absolutely delicious). But bacon continued to stump me.

For as long as I can remember, I've hated turkey bacon. It reminds me of those fore-mentioned Beggin' Strips. Plus you can't do the most important thing when it comes to bacon: you can't cook in the grease. This is mostly because there is none.

Growing up my mom's breakfasts featured eggs scrambled in the grease left over from bacon (stored in a mug on the stove). There is nothing like eggs cooked in bacon grease. But turkey bacon puts off no grease. It just dries up and withers on the skillet. It is a sad sight to behold. A friend told us about a middle eastern butcher that sells non-pork bacon so we took a trip to the far end of Ann Arbor and returned home with a pound and a half of veal bacon.

Now, I was a bit iffy on the idea of veal bacon. I had never heard of it, for one, and for two I knew what veal was. Not that I had some sort of moral objection to eating baby cows. By this time I had eaten enough lamb to be beyond the point of no return when it comes to eating the smaller, cuter varieties of meat.

The next day I throw a few slices into a well heated skillet and was certain that I had died and gone to heaven. The scent was delicious. The bacon was sliced just right. Not too thick, not too thin. Because I was impatient I didn't cook them totally crispy like I normally would (I looove crispy bacon), but they were good either way. The meat was deliciously tender and just chewy enough. And it put out more than enough tasty fat to scramble an egg in. Indeed, that day, the bacon angels smiled upon my house.

Then, some months later, for whatever reason, my butcher's supplier stopped making the bacon. I was devestated. What was I to do without my veal bacon?

The answer came in the form of John Morrell beef bacon at Meijer's. I found it tucked away amongst the turkey and pork bacons. It cost a bit more than my veal bacon, but was well worth it. Cut thicker than the veal bacon was, it was wonderful. Then, without warning, Meijer's stopped carrying it.

I had to go to Kroger to find it. The price was insane. $5.99 for a package of bacon.

It was like being punched in the gut.

See all of this was long before the world food crisis. Long before gas reached $4/gallon anywhere outside of southern California. When people were predicting that $3 gas would stop people from driving (HA!). Before the sub-prime lending scandal.

I was living in a world of good food at cheap prices. Where I could take $30 buy (healthy) food to feed us for a week (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) and have a little extra left over.

But those days are long gone. So my bacon habit has been scaled back to when I absolutely need it. Like when I'm dying of a BLT craving (mmmmm...BLTs) since $6 bacon is something of an extravagance in my book.

Food Prices Skyrocket: What’s a gourmand to do?

The boy and I braved the hot, hot, hot weather and strolled through La Jolla's farmer's market this morning with a Pannikin blueberry-bran muffin (crumbly, moist, dense -- these muffins are the best thing in the morning) and latte in hand. But even more shocking than the heat were the prices!

$2.50 for a head of organic lettuce!

$4.50 for a pound of regular, ol' Early Girl tomatoes

With those kind of prices, we were conservative and didn't buy much. We chatted about the food budget a bit later and wondered, how much does it cost to feed two people each month? Do you cut back on the goodies -- the wine and cheese and fancy chocolate? Do you stick to canned goods and produce on sale? When you're paying nearly $5 a gallon in gasoline to even get to the store, how much is there actually left for food?

While thinking about this topic, I stumbled upon a great article by an old colleague of mine at the Los Angeles Times, Jerry Hirsch, on how to keep eating well during this recession.

His tips:

* Buy good stuff like meat and serve smaller portions (which is better for you anyway). The boy and I don't tend to eat a lot of chicken -- we're trying to eat more vegetarian entrees these days -- so when we get the bird, we splurge on the good stuff (even then, I'm not going to lie, I almost fainted when I saw the price per pound on the organic, free-range chicken we bought today).

* Negotiate if you can -- particularly if the item has a sell-by date that is close to that day. Vendors would rather sell at a discount than throw food away.

* Buy in bulk. This one's tricky. When you buy in bulk, you save more, but you also tend to eat more. Hirsch advises that you split the bounty with friends and family.

* Eat in season. This one used to serve me well, but I'm telling you, tomatoes -- which should be in season around this time of the year -- were $4.50 a pound at the farmer's market!

* Avoid the take-out department and try to make stuff yourself. This one's probably the hardest one to follow. Sure, the lentils in the wholesale department are less than a $1 a pound when they're dry and uncooked but those ready-to-go lentils salads are SO much easier.

Alas, so it looks like it's time to spend a little more time in the kitchen and to let go of convenience foods in these rougher economic times.

Good luck shopping. It's a scary, scary world out there.